


The Devil's Book

by Big_Edies_Sun_Hat



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Historical, Humor, Modern Era, Pre-Relationship, Two Idiots Feel Bad About Things, soft!Crowley
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-13
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2020-10-18 01:43:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20631038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Big_Edies_Sun_Hat/pseuds/Big_Edies_Sun_Hat
Summary: Wouldst thou like to live deliciously? Don't ask Crowley. He won't help.(A story about being unforgivable.)... The Devil's book was thin and floppy, and it was not bound in human skin or ancient sigils, although it did have a nice little lizard catch on the cover. And it did contain the names of damned souls, although what it mostly contained was the addresses of wine merchants, confectioners, and various reliable taverns throughout Europe and the Middle East. Crowley had a proper prop book somewhere for the taking of souls, all mazed and foxed and ominous, but he had always found that his notebook would do just as well.[Complete]





	1. 1696

_THE DEVIL, had he fidelity,_

_Would be the finest friend— _

_Because he has ability, _

_But Devils cannot mend—_

— Emily Dickinson

_1696_

_Tyburn_

_London, England_

As the pair of them stand in the crowded square, Crowley reaches across Aziraphale’s arm and helps himself to a few sugared almonds from a paper cone in the angel’s hand. This is not in itself an unusual thing, except in that Crowley has not seen, spoken, or written a word to Aziraphale in four years.

“Good,” says Crowley, his mouth full. “Still warm.”

Aziraphale, after attempting to glare him into some kind of acknowledgment, shuts his eyes and says,

“You might have sent a _note_.”

Crowley takes another handful.

“I might,” he says, with a shrug. “Just happened to find you, just now. What are you doing here, anyway? At a hanging? Not your sort of thing, is it?”

“Oh, there’s not going to be a hanging,” says Aziraphale.

Crowley gestures to the evidence around them: the crowd, the shouting, the tumbril, the gallows, the hangman, and, inevitably, the men pushing through the crowds selling broadsheets and roasted almonds. And here, of course, is the prisoner, all bones and brown rags, a boy barely fourteen years old, with deputies holding up him up by both arms.

“There is not going to be a hanging,” says Aziraphale. “And _that_ is what I am doing here.”

“Ah,” says Crowley.

“He _did_ steal the sheep, of course. But they were starving. Have the rest of these, won’t you? Won’t be long now.”

Crowley takes the paper cone and watches. Ten minutes later, after several proclamations, a prayer, and some mumbled last words, the trapdoor opens; and the gallows tree breaks with a crash.

The boy lands hard on his side. There is shouting, swarming, a sheriff waving his arms for order. The whole crowd seems to rush forward at once, except for Aziraphale and Crowley. Crowley tosses the paper twist over his shoulder.

“You sure they won’t fix it up and take him back?” he asks.

“No, I’ve seen to it,” says Aziraphale. “The judge will commute his sentence. He’ll be transported to the colonies. Still a terrible shock, but he’ll have his whole life ahead of him. A new world. _The_ New World. Fresh air, open country, and so on—”

Crowley glares at him down his long and narrow nose, as if he’d suggested hanging the boy himself.

“_What_? I did my very best. And it _is_ on assignment. It’s authorized. It’s a Sign and Wonder. It is the mercy of—”

The angel breaks off, and starts again in a lower voice.

“Look, nobody asked me to, but I’m going round later to see the boy’s fed, see that’s he’s not sick or full of lice in the gaol. He’ll be safe. No one in the Front Office thinks of these things. I’ll take care of it.”

“Right,” says Crowley. “sure, right.”

“In any case. Where have you been?”

“The colonies,” he says. “Fresh air. Open country. And so on.”

“Of all things. Look, the rain’s coming on—come on to the Turk’s Head and have a dish of coffee, won’t you? Tell me everything.”

Crowley has wanted very badly to tell him everything, and now he does not know where to start or how to do it.

Should he start with the orders? Or should he start with: _whatever you heard, it wasn’t me, it wasn’t really, it started years before it _started_ and that was before my time, it was a story that came in the ships with them, you know where I was, you _know_ me_ …

So he does not start. He sits silently in the coffee house, listening to the voice of the angel instead.

“… anyway, I think I’m shut of their meddling for awhile. I’m still a silent partner at the bookshop, I’m there most days, and if the Front Office could leave me alone I could get on with my job. Both jobs, I mean. In any case, what about _you_?”

Most of the talking worth hearing in London happens at coffee houses. Men argue, share papers, jostle each other for news; but nobody jostles Aziraphale and Crowley. No one notices them, except as a pair of male shapes at a corner table speaking in vague wordlike sounds. This is just enough existence to get service.

“You went to the colonies, you say? Which ones?”

“New-England,” says Crowley, staring at his saucered coffee. “The Massachusetts Bay.”

The coffee is supposed to be in the Turkish style—_black as the devil, strong as hell, pure as an angel, and sweet as love_—but these are highly debatable propositions, both in general and in the case of the coffee. Crowley privately adds milk and sugar ex nihilo.

“I suppose I’d at least like to see the place,” says Aziraphale politely, to fill his silence.

“No, you wouldn’t,” says Crowley. “They’d beat you. Put you in the stocks.”

“What? Whatever for?”

“About six separate things you’re wearing, for a start. On account of the sinful luxury of it. Gold and lace cuffs and whatnot. All vanities. All illegal. One thing I _did_ like about the place was, I could leave off this blasted wig.”

Crowley scratches behind his ear. Like every other man of means in England, he is wearing a shoulder-length wig, coarse with horsehair, rolled with curls, and powdered with flour.

“How do you put up with it?” he says. “Yours is perfect. Doesn’t look like a load of sausages sewn to a rug. Looks like real hair. All snowy and—”

Aziraphale beams. Crowley stares briefly.

“Oh. So it is,” he says, reddening slightly himself. “Er. What was I saying?”

“About vanity. Did you go out there to incite some more of it?”

Crowley looks aside, his face fallen.

“Yes. I suppose,” he says. “Yes and no. The thing was, I had my orders—”

_1692_

_Outside Salem Village_

_Massachusetts Bay Colony_

These orders read, in relevant part:

_Them that have taken ye Massachusett Land_ _say they have built a City Upon a Hill, a New Eden; they shall find that He who awaited them in the Old, awaits them Still. Go thou forth and sow the Seeds of our Master. Thou wilt find them that await thee in their proper Hour_—

That sort of thing. Crowley had liked the idea, at first. It would get him out of London, which was close and filthy these days, and it would be traveling—traveling somewhere truly new, for the first time in a good while. He wouldn’t have to bother with ships, either; he could get there from Hell in a matter of moments, since it was nowhere and everywhere.

Still, he wasn’t too happy about “them that await thee.” That sounded like summoning, and worshipers. He _hated_ worshipers. Everyone Below hated them, up close, but you had to have them. No sheep, no wool.

So he’d gone directly to Hell. And then—

——

_“—and I turned up out in the bloody forest. I was told there was a city on a hill out there.” _

_Crowley drinks his coffee vengefully, and signals for another. _

_“Well. There _was_ a hill. All kinds of hills. But it’s huts and cows in the mud of the road out where they sent me. Kept getting turned around because all the towns are named for English towns, but not in any order. Farmers and natives and woodlands and snow. Never saw such blessed snow in the world. I was meant to meet someone in the woods. Supposed it was a summoning …” _

——

… and, as usual, he wasn’t told who was doing the summoning, or who he was supposed to meet.

When a magician summons a demon, they are generally under the impression that they have done so out of their own arcane wisdom and magical power. In fact, it is about as an impressive a trick as summoning a waiter. And like a waiter, the demon always knows who he is actually working for, even when his customers have forgotten; and he knows the price to be paid.

Although it did have its moments, Crowley did not, on the whole, enjoy being summoned. It was the entitlement. With the demonologists, it was all _conjure_ this and _abjure_ that. Pompous, vengeful little men, nasty pieces of work that were going to get exactly what they ordered, and what they deserved. That was the fun part—or at least it was fun for Crowley.

But the women—there weren’t many women, thank Satan. They weren’t so easy. They made … _personal_ demands. And they brought much more blood into the picture. Some of it was from children.

A summoning was a formal and noisy affair, and very hard to miss. But where Crowley had been sent, no one seemed to have done it.

It was a twilight in February, high on a hill above a pond, all sharp with granite boulders and birch trees. The sky was hazy and orange; if the stars were right, they couldn’t be seen. Crowley, at a loss, piled himself with wool and furs, sat on a stone and waited.

At last, he decided to do what he generally did when his work became dull and awkward, which was to go and find a drink. Crowley knew his Puritans. The people who had settled this place were not generally acquainted with anything like a good time, but they liked their cider.

He walked downhill, towards a footpath in the pine needles; and it was there that he met the girls.

There were two of them, these girls, bonneted and dressed in muddy violets and greens, unevenly cloaked and badly shod for the snow. They had the slight, short bodies and aged faces of young people who had never had enough to eat when they were small. To look at them, you would not know if they were ten or seventeen.

Crowley was, on occasion, given to know things about his orders. And he knew, with a sudden certainty, that these girls were what was meant by _them that await thee_. But he did not know anything else.

What else would he have to know? This was part of his job. He met people in the wilderness and he tempted them. He shouldn’t need instructions. He certainly shouldn’t feel, even for a second, as if _he_ was the one who was facing an entity beyond his understanding.

The girls were watching him with enormous eyes, glinting white all around.

This was wrong. Something about this was wrong.

It was not that Crowley could not believe that teenaged girls wanted to summon a demon. Of _course_ teenaged girls wanted to summon demons. They would do very little else if they could. But the Back Office almost never sent them the demons they requested.[1] Hell trafficked in power and leverage, which girls, as a rule, did not have. Why these girls? Why all alone, and empty-handed, and surprised?

“Sir?” said one, uncertain.

Crowley recalled himself, and decided, on the whole, to be charming.

“Ladies,” he said. “Aren’t you cold? Wouldn’t you rather be warm?”

And when he spoke, in his warmest voice, they _were_ warm. It was a simple trick for him, as simple as heating his own body, but for girls wrapped in cloth in the ice of February, it was a revelation.

“You’re _him_,” breathed the rightmost girl. He liked her even less.

“Manner of speaking. Manner of speaking,” he said. “Do come on, don’t stand about in the path. Come and have a seat up on the stones here. Nothing ominous about that at all. We’ll have a chat. You look starved, the pair of you. When did you eat last?”

——

_“So it was you!”_

_“Now wait—” _

_“You were the Black Man in the Woods!”_

_“Well, no, I mean, _yes_, but I—”_

_Aziraphale is what Crowley feared he would be: not angry, but shocked. Disappointed. _

_“All that business was down to you! Those poor old women, the panics, the hangings! I heard all about it from the Front Office. Even the people heard about it. We were selling it in broadsheets. I should have known when you said that you’d been out in the colonies—” _

_“No, look, would you _listen_?” _

_“You must have done _something_. What exactly is it that you did?”_

_“I did what I have done,” says Crowley, swirling his coffee. “I asked them questions.”_

_“Asked them questions,” says Aziraphale. “No harm in _you_ doing that, is there. Always harmless. Famous for it.”_

_“’S right,” says Crowley, ignoring the tone. “I asked them some questions, and I … gave them what they needed.”_

_“What exactly was that?”_

_“Not much. These were farm girls. Serving maids. Nowhere to run off to. Nothing to hope for. They just wanted—”_

——

“Red shoes?” repeated Crowley.

What he had given the girls so far was buttered johnnycakes and ham. When he was on assignment, he could conjure even more complex forms of matter than he generally could, but cornbread, sugar, pork and butter had been all the girls wanted. They ate from their bare, ungloved hands.

Then the girl in the purplish dress, who was called Abigail, had said: “Sir, I will do thee honor and sign thy book, if thou wilt but give me good shoes to my feet. Good and red.”

Crowley was nearly impressed. He had not yet raised the subject of books or honor at all. Possibly this girl had summoned him through sheer bloody-mindedness. He’d heard it could happen.

“For—what, are we talking eternal service, love? Red shoes?”

“Thick and strong and warm,” she said, between mouthfuls, “and a coat, all in red, and a dress with buttons all down the back, and a—”

“Yes, absolutely, let’s take it in turns. Now, Mistress … Ann, is that it?”

He could have taken the other girl’s name from her mind, but out of an impulse, he’d guessed. Half the girls in this country were called Ann. From the look of shock on her face, he’d guessed right.

“I rebuke thee in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ,” she said, her voice squeaking with sudden courage, “and I will have none of thee.”

“Fair, fair. That’s a fair point. I hear a lot of that,” said Crowley. “But before I go, I would just like to put it to you, to the both of you: how is it, Abigail, that you have not already _got_ good red shoes? Or a good coat, or a good dress? And Ann, how is it that, say, _you_ are so hungry, and the men and the boys never are?”

Abigail giggled. Ann hunched with embarrassment.

“Where do you sleep, Ann? Three to a bed, in one room with your brothers and sisters and father and mother, with the snow beneath the door in the morning and the water frozen in the stand? Abigail, how many times have you turned about that cloak and patched it, while your mistress goes about in fine boiled wool?”

These were floating resentments, thoughts that were easy to read because they were never far from the surface, mixed with a bit of cold reading. Crowley was forming a plan.

“How is it that girls wake up at dawn, and make a home for their fathers and brothers, and wait for the men and the boys to eat first, and take the leavings? Who was it that told you that God on earth speaks through your father? It _was_ your father, wasn’t it? Or some other old man in a meeting-house?”

Somewhere in the cold night, a gate creaked open; cattle lowed. The steam rose from the girls’ mouths.

“Now Ann here has abjured me in the name of the Lord, so I’ll have to be going, of course—”

“No, please, not yet,” pleaded Abigail. “The book, sir!”

“Right,” said Crowley, “right you are. The book.”

He reached inside his deep black coat. There was, in fact, a book in his inside pocket. It was thin and floppy, and it was not bound in human skin or ancient sigils, although it did have a nice little lizard catch on the cover. And it did contain the names of damned souls, although what it mostly contained was the addresses of wine merchants, confectioners, and various reliable taverns throughout Europe and the Middle East. Crowley had a proper prop book somewhere for the taking of souls, all mazed and foxed and ominous, but he had always found that his notebook would do just as well.

“Now if you’ll just …”

While he had turned his head, Abigail had pulled out her small belt-knife. Now she jabbed the dull point into the tip of her finger. Both of the girls shrieked a little as a bead of crimson welled up.

“ … that, ah, yes, that’ll do nicely. I _had_ a pencil—but yes, yes, let’s see here.”

He produced a black quill. The girl signed _Abigail H_—; her surname was smeared and unreadable.

“I am sorry, my lord, it is all the writing I know to do.”

Crowley shrugged. No one Below cared about the signatures, or the ink, or, in the end, the name. The soul was the soul. They would know.

“You do your level best,” he said. “And now—oh, it looks like your friend is poorly.”

Ann had caught herself against a tree, and was retching into the ground.

“You’re a thing out of Hell, Abigail,” she cried. “You sold yourself to the Fiend!”

“Steady on,” said Crowley.

He snapped his fingers. Both of the girls were still. Time flowed around them; in the distance, hoofbeats approached and faded.

“No need to be sick just now,” said Crowley. “You’re neither of you sick. You’re neither of you certain why you’re here. You’ll remember it tonight. In your sleep. You’ll remember some other things, too. You know the stories. You know them better than I do, don’t you, Abigail? Don’t you, Ann? Go home. Go home and wonder. Go home and believe. Go home and dream about what it might be to tell your fathers what to do for once. And try, just try, to see me again.”

He set his book back in his coat and walked some distance into the heart of the woods before he snapped his fingers again.

——

_“Thing about me,” says Crowley, as he picks up his third coffee. “Thing about me is, you know me. You _know_ me. Do I like to hang about in the cold? I do not. Do I like to play silly buggers with a load of little girls? I do not. I set up a job that does itself. Do my people appreciate that? They do not. But I do it.”_

_The porcelain clinks as the cup shakes in the saucer he is holding._

——

The plan Crowley had formed was simply this: he would disappear. He would never lay eyes on those girls again if he could help it—and he could. They would dream what they would dream; they would whisper to each other, and to their friends. They would seek him out in the woods; they would write up their own books of shadows. They would not find him again. They would find what they had inside themselves.

The girls would stand up against their fathers—however petty and poorly they’d do it. Rocks would be thrown at windows, seemingly from nowhere. Great wild goats and dogs and cats would be seen in the woods. Children would take fits. Girls would see visions, and speak of magic, and their words would be taken down by clerks and pored over by ministers; and, as a matter of course, they would be excused from doing housework while this happened. The country would wake, and search for the devil, the red-bearded blackavised man of the woods. And they were not going to find him, because he was going to be in Florida.

Crowley knew nothing about the place except that it was warm, and that the Spanish had a city there—or something like it, anyway—on the coast. That meant they would probably have wine. These factors alone were a considerable improvement upon New-England. Later, he’d turn up, have a look in, and write his report.

All this being settled, he sank into the earth and cut through Hell.

——

_“Florida? Is that one of yours?”_

_“It will be,” says Crowley, with certainty. “It’s a good bolt-hole, though. It was warm. Not much to do. Churches and all, but the padres were already ours, so they didn’t need me, and the soldiers were bastards—and it was mostly just soldiers. I went to sleep after a while. I mean, I went to _sleep_. Out in the forest.”_

_“For how long?” says Aziraphale, eyes narrowed._

_Crowley sucks in air between his teeth._

_“Six months?”_

_“Six months!” Aziraphale shakes his head. “You slept through the winter again? I thought you gave that up.”_

_“Right, yes, so did I. Slept a bit late. And, well …” _

_“Well?”_

——

A demon cannot be kind. A demon cannot be fond of people. What a demon _can_ be is sinful. Sloth is, of course, a mortal sin. And Crowley, having long understood this to be true, had dedicated himself to a deep and profound laziness. He cultivated it. He did his job largely through suggesting that people do it for themselves. On the whole, this had worked remarkably well, not only in his career but in his ability to look into mirrors and, just incidentally, to have dinner with old friends now and again.

What was also important was that the people he made to suffer had, by and large, asked for it—_asked_ to suffer. Not all of them, of course. Most of them. But not all.

It was early autumn when he came to Essex County, and the crops were not high in the field. They should have been. The fields were poor and weed-eaten, only half tended. Hay moldered in mounds. Livestock showed their ribs.

The people he met on the roads looked ashen, and their eyes darted past him and around him. They were not afraid of _him_—they couldn’t see him, not when he didn’t want them to. What was it they were afraid of? It looked like a plague had come; or maybe the native folk had had enough, and there had been another war.

Crowley decided to do what he generally did when he needed news: he would saunter into a tavern, clap a handful of coins on the bar, and order a round for himself and his new friends, which would mean anyone in earshot.

But it was a long road to find a tavern with its doors open, with any sign of life. He had to walk miles until dusk, all the way to the seaport, past Salem Village and into Salem.

The men at the tavern stared at him with fear and dread, but that was not strange. That happened to Crowley everywhere. What was strange was that they looked out into the street—looked at _each other_ in just the same way. Crowley was not the worst thing they had seen that day.

He waved his hand in front of the least dead-looking of the drinkers.

“I’m just off the boat from Bristol,” he said. “What’s happened here?”

_1696_

“… they’d hanged nineteen people for witches. More of ‘em died in the gaol. Little children. They made special irons for the little children, because their arms wouldn’t fit in the … And it wasn’t even the same girls that started it. It wasn’t the same girls at all. They just … thought it up themselves.”

Crowley is looking into his empty saucer, pushing the grounds into odd patterns with his fingernail. He does not look across the table.

“Anyway. Went back and wrote it all up. All of it. Had to tell them I did _something_. But it wasn’t my—I didn’t do any of it. I never do any of it. It’s … what I do. I never do any of it.”

On the other side of the room, voices are raised; men argue. The angel says nothing.

“Could you … I mean—”

Crowley looks up.

“You believe me. Don’t you?”

Aziraphale gives him the solemn, gentle look of a man who has searched for a friend for a long time and found him in the gutter. It is, in fact, the same look he gave Crowley when he found him exactly there. That was in Spain, in 1530, after Crowley received his commendation for the Inquisition.

“Oh, Crowley. For goodness’ sake,” he says, his voice soft. “For goodness’ sake. Four coffees in a half hour. It’s made you dizzy. Get rid of it at once.”

Crowley does. The caffeine leaves his bloodstream, and he sags, a puppet with cut strings.

“You know,” he says, “I think that’s just what you said to me in Spain. Except about wine. Wish we’d have gone and had a drink instead of this muck. You want to?”

“No,” says Aziraphale firmly. “There’s something I want you to do for me. You still owe me a turn after last time. You recall?”

“Really? No, didn’t I already—”

“What I want you to do,” says the angel, “is to go after that boy we saw, in the gaol house. I told you, he’ll need to be seen to. He’ll need to be fed, and to have someone be sure that he’s warm and not sick, and that no one does harm to him until he can go overseas. A blessing, if it were mine, or in your case, a—a malediction? No. However you like. You can sort that out for me. You’re better at gaols than I am.”

“Well,” says Crowley, “yes, that’s true.”

“It wouldn’t hurt your pride too much, would it? To do good for a poor thing like that?”

“No,” says Crowley, “no, suppose not.”

“Come along, then. I’ll take you to him. Up you get.”

Aziraphale helps him to his feet. After all the caffeine has left him, he is exhausted.

“Mad bloody country, angel,” he mutters, as they leave the coffee house. “Boy’s in trouble enough as it is, going there.”

“Hush,” says Aziraphale. “Look, the rain’s been and gone since we were inside. Passed over us, now. Isn’t that nice?”

[1] The one demon they could generally manage to raise was Bloody Mary, who was inexplicably popular for a creature who communicated via screams and face mauling.


	2. 2019

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A coda.

_2019_

_Mayfair_

_London, England_

He will not be able to ask Aziraphale what he had meant to ask him, or hear it answered, for nearly three hundred and twenty years. It is simply this:

“Could you forgive me?”

It is late and dark when he asks it, and he does not say it very loud. He has been curled fetal on his side of the bed, looking out the window at the orange sky, thinking of innocence and death and the snow of February.

The bed shifts, and then Crowley hears the sound of a page turning; that is how he knows he is not alone any longer. Aziraphale moves so quietly at night. They have only had things sorted out between them for a week or so, but Aziraphale comes to bed as if they have been married for decades.

“Angel. Could you forgive me?”

The answer is immediate and suspicious.

“Why. What have you done?”

“No, nothing just now. I mean—”

Crowley tries uncurling himself a little, but he does not turn around to see Aziraphale’s face.

“Could you _forgive_ me? For everyone? Everyone that, um, that didn’t deserve it, which, I mean, honestly, a lot of them did, not upset about that sort, the malefactors of great wealth and whatnot, but—not all of them. I think … I think about them. Old women. And children. More than you know. Could _you_ forgive me?”

This is, he knew, a stupid question. There is no precedent for absolution for such as he, and if there ever were, it would surely not be from an entity who (he is certain without looking) is at this very moment wearing pinstriped seersucker pajamas. But in the past few weeks, there have been a great deal of astonishingly stupid questions, and some of them have had very stupid answers, or at least what Crowley would have thought were stupid answers before they turned out to be true.

Aziraphale sets a soft hand on his shoulder. Crowley does not turn around, but he holds it.

The angel has long allowed himself to be mistaken for foolish, even by Crowley. Sometimes, of course, it has been true. But in these matters, he knows what he knows. He speaks now with his own authority, which is the authority of gentleness itself.

“No. No, God Herself cannot forgive a sin against the dead,” he says, his thumb stroking peaceably against Crowley’s. “But I _know_ you.”

Crowley knows Aziraphale is right. He’d known before he spoke. There is no forgiveness for what he has done against humans, unless those humans are alive to give it. But when he had been alone with that thought, there was only despair. Now that it has been spoken, there is a deep and unexpected comfort.

The bed shifts again. The book shuts.[1] There is more rustling, then a pop, then a shadow over Crowley’s eyes. Crowley raises a hand over his head.

When a heron creates a canopy of shade beneath itself to see into the water, it encircles itself and the water below with its wings. This is what Aziraphale is doing now, creating a canopy over the center of the bed.

“What are you doing? Put them away,” says Crowley; but even as he says it, he does not mean it.

“No. Don’t lie there in a knot like that. Come underneath.” Soft as it is, it is an order. “You always feel better when you do.”

“Should I? Should I do that? Should I feel better?”

Aziraphale’s hand tightens in his.

“You’ve tried feeling sorry for yourself. Does it help, do you think?”

“Rrrrgh.”

Crowley relaxes himself, then rolls over and shelters beneath Aziraphale, who sits up against the bedstead. The demon crawls into his lap—seersucker pajamas, it’s true—and falls against his chest. He is quite aware that the peace and drowsiness he feels are not really his own. It is a matter of celestial background radiation, and of love. He does not deserve either of them. Neither of them have anything to do with forgiveness. But here they are, and he is too tired to fight them.

Crowley is nearly asleep when Aziraphale speaks.

“Listen,” he says. “I was thinking. What are we going to do tomorrow? I don’t mean about breakfast, or business, or anything like that. What are we going to do for this world? That’s the forgiveness we have, I think. It’s tomorrow.”

Crowley’s answer is muffled.

“Smug bastard. Still bloody holy.”

“Someone ought to be.”

A few minutes pass. Outside, a car alarm sounds and is silenced with the click of keys.

“Speaking of sin,” says Aziraphale. “About tomorrow. I’d been thinking. I really ought to go and speak to that lovely Madame Tracy. I should have done it days ago. I’d said to myself, surely she would like to be left alone after all that, but even so … She’ll have gone home with a terrible opinion of me, I’m afraid. And well she might. I was an awful lodger. I … I am going to ask her to forgive me for—for what I would have done. And thank her. Would you care to drive? … Oh.”

Crowley is snoring. It is a quiet, thin snore, easy to miss.

“Well. Κύριή, νώ ἐλέησον,” says Aziraphale, out of habit. He is no longer sure if the Lord is listening, but he has found that he still has Articles of Faith all his own, and one of them has to do with mercy.

He carefully reaches for the book he put aside, and, in a politely dim light of his own generation, continues to read.

  


[1] It was a much newer book of magic than the ones he’d learned from, by two much newer magicians. There was quite a lot of blasphemy in it, considering, and apparently the short one couldn’t speak, but it certainly made for good reading.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Greek may be bad. It's been a while. 
> 
> Thanks again to die_traumerei.
> 
> More nonsense at my tumblr.

**Author's Note:**

> Beta reading by [die_traumerei](https://archiveofourown.org/users/die_traumerei/pseuds/die_traumerei) (so appreciated!).


End file.
